What You Can Do To Decompress During College Midterms Week

College Midterms Week is an exhausting period of time mentally for everyone regardless of age and whether they are undergraduate or postgraduate students. It is perhaps one of the worst experiences during one’ s years at university. One might feel extremely stressed, panicked, and feel like they might want to drop out of school but he/she won’t have to do just that!

Reviewing your notes and other study materials 24/7 before and during College Midterms Week isn’t what most people want to do as it adds more stress before the actual midterm. However, there are some ways and activities that everyone can do to decrease their anxiety as College Midterms Week goes on.

Listed below are five Things of What You Can Do To Decompress During College Midterms Week:

1. Plan Ahead of Time:

Around a week or two prior to your exams, be sure to take some time out of your schedule to sit down and plan how you want to handle the upcoming College Midterms Week. This will help eliminate a lot of unnecessary stress that you don’t need as you are preparing for all of your examinations.

The most important thing is to write down where you will be taking your midterms and what times each one will be. For the rest of the time during College Midterms Week when you are not taking an exam, map out when and how long you want to review each subject for. As you are mapping out your College Midterms Week Schedule, don’t forget to include what times you plan on going to bed and/or have a few study breaks.

2. Take Care of Yourself:

During College Midterms Week (Finals Week as well), you must remember to take care of yourself as it can be a very stressful time for all students. When a person becomes stressed out, he or she tends to forget about managing their own mental health

The ways in which you can take care of yourself during this stressful time include eating and showering regularly. For the former, it is important that you have a big meal or even a granola bar right before you take an exam. In addition, one must get somewhere between 6-8 hours of sleep each night leading into and during College Midterms Week.

Besides not studying enough, another reason why some students don’t get the best grades on their midterms is due to not having a proper good night’s sleep before the exam. While studying and understanding the material ahead of the exam is important, having enough sleep can affect your results.

3. Go to The Gym and Exercise:

While reviewing for your midterms, if you feel like your brain can take any more information, one way that you can take a break from all the studying is by exercising! Go to either your university’s fitness center or any gym (for those who live off-campus) to blow off some steam.

Harvard Medical School has stated that while exercise is a form of physical stress, it can help relieve a person’s mental stress. Exercise also reduces the levels of one’s stress hormones, which include cortisol and adrenaline.

Furthermore, the same article from Harvard Medical School revealed that regular aerobic exercise will stimulate the production of endorphins, chemicals in the brain operate as the body’s mood elevators and natural painkillers. After completing your workout, you will have a fresh and renewed sense of energy that you can use as you are preparing for college midterms week.

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4. Study Break Options One Should Definietely Consider:

Besides going to the gym to blow off some of your mental stress, there are a lot of other options to do when you are in a desperate need of a study break leading up to and/or during College Midterms Week. Carve out an hour or two into your schedule for some much needed “Me Time”.

Study Break Options include going off-campus with a friend or two to grab food, hanging out and shopping at the nearby mall, watching a movie (Netflix or at the movie theater), listening to music, and watching a funny YouTube video, to name a few. Also, be sure to check out what activities your university is offering during the time College Midterms Week takes place. Some schools bring in food trucks for students to grab a nice quick snack from. In addition, most schools have dogs, and baby animals for students to play with as a way to relieve some of the stress off their backs.

5. Don’t Jump Right Back into Study Mode After Finishing Each Midterm:

Every person’s exam schedule during college midterms week will be different. Some might have more than one exam on a single day or one exam each day. Also, the amount of time they have in between exams (assuming that they have more than one in a single day) varies for everyone.

If there’s a day during College Midterms Week where you have only one exam, reward yourself post-exam by going enjoying a nice meal at a restaurant (with or without friends) or take a much-needed break before going back to study for the rest of your exams. If you have more than one exam on any day(s) during College Midterms Week, you can still take a well-deserved break. However, how long you do so depends on how much time you have in between exams that day.

While it’s best to overprepared for any exam, you don’t want to put too much stress on yourself by hitting the books and review materials right away post-exam. One’s brain won’t be able to function properly. Plan and make sure you devote enough time to understanding all of what’s going to be tested before College Midterms Week. That way, you won’t feel too nervous and be forced to jump into study mode post-exam if you don’t have a lot of time in between exams that you have on the same day.